VPL has returned!

I am personally super excited about this! I really like cpvr-- he is an awesome guy and really cared about his community.

 
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I'm honestly not excited about this, he treated previous staff members like myself (and a few other moderators) like dirt when he just vanished and allow VPL to go down. He was offered a year of free hosting from another moderator and money from myself to keep it up and he still took it down without reason.

He's yet to offer an explanation for it and it's been 3 years since it was around, I put so much of my time into those forums and many other people did the exact same as me. The least Carlos could do is provide an explanation as to why VPL vanished.

 
I'm with @Martyn on this one, I'm not super stoked that it has returned, and as @Shex it's just "another forum" at this point because the old content is gone.

Carlos is good at content generation, so when it came up I suggested we join forces to build up the community and the response that I got was pretty much "why would I get rid of my site with 200k backlinks?".  My thought was to try to unite the community but it seems as though he is letting his brand and desire for personal popularity be more important than the community at large.

 
There appears to be some bitterness between the admins here and cpvr but I can vouch that cpvr is a good guy. We don't know the personal and real life circumstances behind what happened but this community would not even exist had it not been for cpvr since a large amount of those members moved here. And let's not proclaim that this forum itself is hugely popular and booming, because it isn't either and it is a bad look having the admins trashing another site publicly, a site they owe a lot to quite frankly...

 
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DaRule said:
There appears to be some bitterness between the admins here and cpvr but I can vouch that cpvr is a good guy. We don't know the personal and real life circumstances behind what happened but this community would not even exist had it not been for cpvr since a large amount of those members moved here. And let's not proclaim that this forum itself is hugely popular and booming, because it isn't either and it is a bad look having the admins trashing another site publicly, a site they owe a lot to quite frankly...
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Let's not pretend he didn't just abandon the site for years with no explanation either.  He might be a great guy but he left a lot of people high and dry with no community to go to.  I think Carlos owes quite a lot to this forum for keeping some of us engaged actually, quite the contrary to your thinking.

 
LobstahMoney said:
Let's not pretend he didn't just abandon the site for years with no explanation either.  He might be a great guy but he left a lot of people high and dry with no community to go to.  I think Carlos owes quite a lot to this forum for keeping some of us engaged actually, quite the contrary to your thinking.
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Carlos isn't benefiting from TGL at all though whereas TGL inherited most of its community from VPL. cpvr literally paved the way for TGL and for the admins here to just tear him down because his personal life got in the way seems kind of cold and spiteful, and I am not really sure what their goal is in this regard.

 
I have nothing against CPVR at all, we were friends for the longest time, throughout the life of VPL.  I'm more just disappointed in the overall decision more than anything else.

If my comments are taken as trying to tear him down, then they have been misinterpreted and I apologize for the miscommunication.  I just find it insane to try to "rebuild the community" another time on VPL.  I reached out to him as a way of saying "welcome back", and offering a way to make the transition back a little easier.

The pet/game/sim site community as a whole is fairly small, in my opinion it helps us, the community, stick together instead of constantly competing against one another.  Having "yet another forum" will help to fracture the already divided community instead of unite them.

 
DaRule said:
There appears to be some bitterness between the admins here and cpvr but I can vouch that cpvr is a good guy. We don't know the personal and real life circumstances behind what happened but this community would not even exist had it not been for cpvr since a large amount of those members moved here. And let's not proclaim that this forum itself is hugely popular and booming, because it isn't either and it is a bad look having the admins trashing another site publicly, a site they owe a lot to quite frankly...
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This statement is missing several points that I can (as the founder of this community) clarify.

1. There is no direct bitterness between myself and cpvr. I actually have never had any direct communication with him, although many attempts were made.

2. TGL did not directly benefit from VPL. Members for this community were found through social media AFTER VPL was offline for 2 weeks. Members here were contacted directly by myself and through word of mouth.

3. This community exists as a direct result of cpvr’s actions, public and personal. This community has existed for years because of that.

Keep in mind that I have never directly privately or publicly criticized or put cpvr down in any way. I created TGL to fill a void that lasted years to keep a small community of individuals interested in creating virtual pet sites or games alive and not letting it fall into the void. Please before making heated statements be fair to everyone (which I am included as well as anyone else) involved. We, like others, felt let down by cpvr’s actions that have now lasted years. It is nothing personal, but it is there and it what it is.

Communities thrive through cooperation, rarely through division. As @judda stated, Only by keeping things together will this niche and overall community thrive and grow. The actions of cpvr by bringing up a new forum with no content show that he feels very different about the community overall and that it is okay to fracture it further. That much was made clear in communications with him and actions alone.

 
Please keep in mind everyone that although we welcome honest discussion, we will lock this thread if it becomes to heated or disruptive. Keep the discussion going, but not the expense of others opinions.

 
@DaRule
If you took what me and @judda said as being some level of bitterness then I do apologise as it was not intentional, we are more upset at the fact that it actually got to the point of Virtual Pet List going down for 3 years rather than any of our anger being directed at Carlos himself. We view him as a good guy and in my case a friend considering I worked alongside him for well over 5 years.

I know what went on prior to Virtual Pet List going down as well as what went on during it's time down for at least a year after it, although I'm not at liberty to divulge information as it's between me, Carlos and a few other individuals. Just let it be known that there was many ways in which the forums could've stayed up, it just so happened none of those were taken on board.

In some ways you are correct that this community wouldn't have existed without Virtual Pet List going down, however you are incorrect that it was as simple as "a large amount of those members moved here". They didn't just move like that because me, Digital or any of the other staff just clicked our fingers and they trotted after us. We actually had to go out of our way to get in contact with people through other means since the quick and easy private messaging service that Virtual Pet List had provided was no longer in action. A lot of the reasons why people are on here is through networking and informing people that whilst their main forums is down, there is a way of staying connected and not letting the community fall apart. Our main focus wasn't to take for our own gain, but rather make sure that we didn't lose the level of community that Virtual Pet List had grown.

That being said, I don't take kindly to being accused of trashing another site publicly. I don't care either way if people join Carlos' forums, they can do what they want and I can express my opinion on it. I have my reasons for not being terribly excited about the return, most of them consisting of how much time and effort I put into not only the site when it was active, but more so trying to keep it up at the cost of my mental health and what little money I had. I'm rightfully allowed to be hurt by what went on behind the scenes and I wasn't the only one who got hurt by what went on either (I won't name names, but they can come and comment on that if they wish).

I wish Carlos the best with the revival of Virtual Pet List but I simply won't feel comfortable rejoining it until I'm provided with some clarity as to why it went down, why it took so long to return and why what me and others did back then wasn't good enough.

 
You are missing the point Digital, that base you were reaching out to on Twitter only existed because of VPL and TGL is a copy of VPL, a place for people to take refuge, and to ignore the efforts cpvr put into it regardless of what happened is bitter.

 
DaRule said:
Carlos isn't benefiting from TGL at all though whereas TGL inherited most of its community from VPL. cpvr literally paved the way for TGL and for the admins here to just tear him down because his personal life got in the way seems kind of cold and spiteful, and I am not really sure what their goal is in this regard.
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Just to make a point... If TGL or another forum had not come around to fill the void left by VPL, then there would be no community left for VPL to serve. VPL is very much benefiting from TGL and the community choosing to stay alive.

 
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@DaRule
It wasn't only through Twitter that we reached out to people, I reached out to people I've known in the community since before I was even on Virtual Pet List and informed others who I became close friends with through it. They chose to pass that information on to others through the word of mouth.

Digital wasn't ignoring the efforts Carlos had put into his forums, but neither is he obligated to list them all.
Also while I'm here, as much as I don't want to comment on your copy of VPL comment, I'd like to raise a question. If we're using that logic then isn't the majority of Virtual Pet Sites just copies of Neopets?

 
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GeekGirl said:
Just to make a point... If TGL or another forum come around to fill the void left by VPL, then there would be no community left for VPL to serve. VPL is very much benefiting from TGL and the community choosing to stay alive.
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How is VPL benefiting from TGL at all? They come to this thread and see the admins here trashing it, and It persuades them to not even check it out.

 
Martyn said:
@DaRule
It wasn't only through Twitter that we reached out to people, I reached out to people I've known in the community since before I was even on Virtual Pet List and informed others who I became close friends with through it. They chose to pass that information on to others through the word of mouth.

Digital wasn't ignoring the efforts Carlos had put into his forums, but neither is he obligated to list them all.
And as much as I don't want to comment on your copy comment, but if we're using that logic here then isn't the majority of Virtual Pet Sites just a copy of Neopets?
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There are definitely sites that are copies of Neopets, especially older ones. There is a difference between being inspired by a site and making an almost absolute copy.

 
@DaRule
VPL is benefiting because they still have members within the community (which we helped keep afloat) who hear about it's return through here, their FB page isn't massively active and there isn't many other places to find out about its return from. The fact it's posted here and we're fine with it being posted here allows others to check it out for themselves.

 
Whew, a lot of response in this thread!

I'd like to point out my response is based purely as a past member of VPL. I used to primarily lurk there since it felt like most posts were aimed in a negative fashion and the place loved drama. But it still had access to potentially good info so I would read up on it from time to time. Watching the updates on Facebook about whether the site would stay up or go down was mind boggling, especially with promises of it staying for it to just poof (and the reasons given publicly made no sense).

It took me a really long time to even join TGL out of concern for the place poofing one day and overall not wanting to read or deal with drama in between getting information. I was happy when I finally joined to see that wasn't an issue anymore.

If Carlos had come back with a full explanation I'd be more apt to check the new forums out, but unless the place gives off a different feel than the past and it manages to not poof within a year then I'd join up again. Not that my joining or not is really any loss to the forums, I am sure.

That being said, despite Carlos not wanting to align with TGL, I don't feel there needs to be any vibe of competition. I am sure both forums will have their own pros and cons along with various resources. People aren't in a place where they have to pick one or the other and I hope they realize that!

 
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